Category: Musings

Architecting

I realized this week that I seem to have a lot more interest in architecting than in execution.

I also remembered that we become different persons based on what happens to us or the choices we have, even based on how good or bad we feel. Change may occur gradually after a long time or repeatedly on a much smaller scale. I just know it happens, to all of us, and that it is more or less perceptible (to us, to others). We are not exactly who and how we were at some point, and it makes it challenging to plan or to predict reactions (ours, other’s), but after all, isn’t it a more interesting this way?

Although I feel exactly the same, I am no longer the same person I was the last time I asked myself what I liked doing. So when I didn’t understand why I wasn’t approaching anymore things the way I used to, why some things had become unattractive to me, I got more and more worried and blamed it on not having enough time, not prioritizing the right way, or being unqualified.

Then a few things happened.

First, I had a great time when I focused on building a list and qualifying why its elements mattered individually and made sense as a whole, but it was not that pleasant a few days after to sit (thankfully for a short time) with a group that was fleshing out and categorizing the list. Worse, the only part I enjoyed was observing the deftness of the meeting convener at turning input that was sometimes diverging into something concrete. I wondered what was wrong with me to even feel the way I did (frustrated at times of some people’s carelessness, bored at other times by the pointlessness of some of the input, awed by the patience of the Chair, and puzzled that others seemed to be having such a great time.)

Second, I set aside some time to make a dent in a part of my TODO that I have kept bumping down for over a month, only to witness myself not being able to make anything of everything about it that was in my brain. If only there was a button I could press to process everything. I was unable to make myself go through the exercise and it was a source of much disappointment and of course worry. Where did my abilities go? Why the block? Welp.

Today it seems I prefer to conceive and design future implementations than to put things together and execute. From the event celebrating 30th anniversary of W3C last year to the various projects and conversations I am involved in this year, it’s clear that I choose to set the tone and direction, impress key principles, assign certain people, make specific connections, monitor promising angles, and track that the course is as plotted.

I have a keen notion of where I want to lead my small team and how to best use our collective skills and inclinations. Therefore I became more assertive over the years, the more it looked like we were doing OK, then doing alright. There is positive reinforcement in approaching things cautiously and in a way to be able to adapt nimbly. Tomorrow is exactly the 10th anniversary of my appointment as head of the W3C marketing and communications team. What changed though is that in some cases I discover I have a really hard time executing, to the extent that I am unable to remember how to.

Flickr stats: me wins, my photos lose, meh

Screenshot of the Flickr app showing the all-time views, the 1st photo has had over 124K, 2nd 45K, 3rd 36K, 4th 30K, 5th 28K. All but the 4th are photos picturing me.

What my top-five most viewed photos tell me is that I should have been a model in my early thirties rather than a wannabe photographer.

I have been using Flickr since 2005.

Well, I have not used it for several years now, and I think I just understood why:

The most viewed photos are almost entirely pictures I posted that picture me. They are part of the story I told about me on this platform, but they are not photos I took. (Although I did a series of self portraits in a dusty mirror which are of me, by me.)

But I don’t use the platform to show myself (that’s what Instagram is about, right? And I left that one already), as much as to showcase my photography at the same time as I photo-document bits of my life.

The only photo where I am not, among the top five, is a byproduct of its title being the same as swingers club (a coincidence, which I blogged about in 2006 when I figured out why it was my most popular photo.)

I think I will find out how much longer the pro membership I paid is, and find an exit strategy for all of my photos on this platform. There is appetite for how I was about 10 years ago more than there is appetite for the stuff I want to show, much to my dismay.

Work won’t love you back

2022-08-03 Update: reflected that the transition to a legal entity was postponed by a year; gave link to media advisory of that transition; rewrote two phrases.

Abstract of what is on my mind: work is transactional by nature, excellent connections with coworkers are precious (I am fortunate to have many). Now, the companies that consider their work force “family” puzzle me. This is not exactly the case where I work (or is it?), BUT we are in a setting that is pretty conducive to it, AND after 27 years, this is going to change –in less than a year two years. SO I really wonder what that change will do to the current equilibrium (I’m pretty sure it’s going to put it to the test).

Screenshot of a Tweet by Kevin pointing out that work won’t love you back

This stemmed from my browsing The Twitters yesterday. I read Kevin‘s tweet.

He wrote ““work won’t love you back.” And as much as I’ve loved the people I’ve worked with, it’s always turned to be correct.“

Screenshot of the The tweets that Kevin quoted, referring to work as family but also as being a transaction

Kevin was quoting another Twitter thread where I read “it’s so emotionally damaging when companies self-style their workers as ‘family’. you can have deep emotional connections with your coworkers, if you’re lucky, but don’t forget that work relationships are fundamentally transactional. i hope your family is not.“

I don’t consider my workplace to be like family and we aren’t self-styled as such either. But, work is very central in my life: every other week I spend most of my waking time at work (the other week, I am solo parent of a teenager, spending just normal amounts of time at work).

Firstly, I am fortunate to have very deep emotional connections with many of my coworkers, a few of which I even regard as father parent figures, many of which are true models for me, most of which I respect tremendously.

Secondly, we have very little turnover. I’ve worked there for over 22 years and many current colleagues were already in the team when I joined. And we welcome newcomers, not as siblings, but with similar care and attention to their success. As though we have a stake in it –and we do, yes.

Thirdly, we get together (we used to, pre-COVID at least) every now and then and those occasions are always enjoyable and looked forward to by most. Yes, like any other workplaces, there are difficult people who get along with fewer people, or are not interested in making any connections at all. That’s my description of our unusual work environment. In fact, I remember how I described it to my mum a few years into it: it’s like summer camp where you make new great friends and do exciting stuff, but it’s all year-round.

Now, our administrative setup allows us to do our work without a whole lot of competition, without too many frustrations, because we are employed by four different institutions that legally “host” our consortium, and in most of our cases, the people who employ us are not those we take work orders from. I think that makes a world of a difference.

Change is coming. The Hosts arrangement, in place from the start in 1994, has enough drawbacks that for a few years now we have been exploring how to become our own legal entity. This is set to happen on January 1, 2022 2023. When it does, the consortium will have its own bank account, legal and fiduciary obligations, and traditional management powers that we currently do not fully have.

The dynamics are bound to change. While today I (and many others in the team) are moved by the sheer impact our work has on society (HTML –heard of it? CSS, Web accessibility, Internationalization, etc. We are the little known consortium that makes the Web work, for everyone) and the Hosts that employ us provide the best abstraction to shield us from the reality of the transactional nature of work, this is going has the potential to hit us in the face like the train crashing Dr. Woodward’s truck in the movie Super 8!

There is a lot on our plates and most of us overwork because it’s really worth it! I remind myself on occasion that work won’t love me back, but once we are truly as valuable as our ability to make the company money, I wonder how the care will fare.

2 years a bachelorette

Today I’ve been a bachelorette for two years. It’s a fact, not a celebration, not a commemoration, not a homage. This is not a life goal either!

Hand-made envelope of a stapled white folded sheet on which colourful patches form a heart.

I love the idea of love and am happy for those who are in a good relationship. I am not sad that this isn’t my case. In practice, I have accepted that that isn’t for me.

I have had many happy moments in all of my past relationships and I cherish those memories. I am blessed with a selective memory which ensures that I retain hardly any bitterness from the unhappy times.

There isn’t any “yet”. That is all. The anniversary was on my mind because I was reminded of that time years ago when a dear friend of mine had posited that I could never stay single. It may have been the case then, and it may have shaped what I did back then to not stay single. If it was true, it hasn’t been for a while.